This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
UPnP is one of the technical cornerstones of the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), a group which is working towards a wired and wireless interoperable network of Personal Computers (PC), Consumer Electronics (CE) and mobile devices in the home, enabling a seamless environment for sharing and growing new digital media and content services. UPnP technology defines an architecture for pervasive peer-to-peer network connectivity of intelligent appliances, wireless devices, and personal computers of all types. UPnP technology is designed to bring easy-to-use, flexible, standards-based connectivity to ad-hoc or unmanaged networks whether in the home, in a small business, public locations, or systems connected to the Internet. UPnP technology provides a distributed, open networking architecture that leverages TCP/IP and web technologies to enable seamless proximity networking, in addition to providing control and data transfer among networked devices.
The UPnP Device Architecture (UDA) is designed to support zero-configuration, “invisible” networking and automatic discovery for a breadth of device categories from a wide range of vendors. With UDA, a device can dynamically join a network, obtain an IP address, convey its capabilities, and learn about the presence and capabilities of other devices.
In current UPnP audio/video (AV) environments (also used by DLNA), a user typically has to make a number of different selections in order to initiate an AV use case. For example, if a user wants to watch a movie in his or her living room, the user must (a) search/browse/select the content to be viewed, (b) select the AV renderer device, and potentially (c) make some adjustments to the rendering device, such as adjusting the volume on the rendering device, etc. Even in an environment that is not very complex in nature, such as when there is only one rendering device in the room and only a limited number of content items, this process can be cumbersome. For novice users, this process is especially difficult to implement. In the future, however, it is likely that people will have several rendering devices in various rooms in their homes, they will have access to more and more different multimedia items, and they will have access to a growing number of UPnP environments. It will therefore become increasingly aggravating for a user to be constantly making the above mentioned selections each time the user attempts to start using UPnP AV equipment at his or her disposal.
In light of the above, it would therefore be desirable to provide a system and method that reduces the complexity involved in establishing various AV use cases.